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A Mission to Convert (Dawkin's "God Delusion")
New York Book Review ^ | January 11, 2007 | H. Allen Orr

Posted on 01/04/2007 9:31:34 AM PST by hocndoc

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To: hocndoc
In short, only complicated objects can design simpler ones; information cannot flow in the other direction, with simple objects designing complicated ones. But that means any designer God would have to be more complex —and thus even more improbable— than the universe he was supposed to explain. This argument, Dawkins concludes, "comes close to proving that God does not exist": the God Hypothesis has a vanishingly small probability of being right.

Ahh, circular reasoning at its best. God was not created - He describes Himself as "I AM" - therefore, probabilities about His complexity are meaningless.

Dawkins simply can't imagine a God that big.

41 posted on 01/04/2007 10:57:32 AM PST by Terabitten (How is there no anger in the words I hear, only love and mercy, erasing every fear" - Rez Band)
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To: hocndoc

Well put.


42 posted on 01/04/2007 10:58:40 AM PST by newheart (The Truth? You can't handle the Truth. But He can handle you.)
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To: colorado tanker

The trouble is that Dawkins is frozen at the 13 year old anarchist/nihilist stage of philosophical development, and he has quite a following of stunted fellows.


43 posted on 01/04/2007 10:58:59 AM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: Terabitten; betty boop

Actually, Dawkins is in a loop in this argument - he's attempting to turn Creationists' arguments back on themselves.

He, as many of the anti-Creation argue-ers do, doesn't see that he has the same problem at the point of the Big Bang. ( would you call it BB Prime, Alpha or Number 1?)


44 posted on 01/04/2007 11:03:16 AM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: samtheman
I would say that Stalinsm, Nazism and Maoism were religions in the sense that there was an orthodoxy and those who didn't follow it were dealt with harshly. The difference is that they didn't have any theology as oppososed to theocratic dictatorships like Calvin's Geneva and Cromwell's England.
45 posted on 01/04/2007 11:04:29 AM PST by Borges
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To: hocndoc
The trouble is that Dawkins is frozen at the 13 year old anarchist/nihilist stage of philosophical development, and he has quite a following of stunted fellows.

LOL! Well put.

46 posted on 01/04/2007 11:08:58 AM PST by colorado tanker
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To: hocndoc
Dawkins clearly believes his background in science allows him to draw strong conclusions about religion and, in The God Delusion, he presents those conclusions in language that's stronger still. Dawkins not only thinks religion is unalloyed nonsense but that it is an overwhelmingly pernicious, even "very evil"

I wonder how he defines the term "evil" scientifically or empirically. I won't hold my breath, since it's impossible.

Logically, philosophy defines science. Logically, science cannot define philosophy.

Many scientists are ignorant of philosophy. Wise scientists know their limitations, and don't advertise them.

47 posted on 01/04/2007 11:11:46 AM PST by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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To: hocndoc
Here's an Oldie but Goody

I serve a risen Saviour, He's in the world today;
I know that He is living whatever men may say;
I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him, He's always near.

chorus
He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today!
He walks with me and talks with me along life's narrow way.
He lives, He lives, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.

In all the world around me I see His loving care,
And tho' my heart grows weary I never will despair;
I know that He is leading thro' all the stormy blast,
The day of His appearing will come at last.

chorus

Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian, lift up your voice and sing
Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ the King!
The hope of all who seek Him, the help of all who find,
None other is so loving, so good and kind.

chorus

48 posted on 01/04/2007 11:16:15 AM PST by smokinleroy
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To: Terabitten; hocndoc; Alamo-Girl; hosepipe; marron; .30Carbine; cornelis; beckett; Cicero
Ahh, circular reasoning at its best. God was not created - He describes Himself as "I AM" - therefore, probabilities about His complexity are meaningless. Dawkins simply can't imagine a God that big.

It certainly seems he doesn't want a god any bigger than himself. It seems to me the entire point of his evangelical atheism is to reduce the entire world to the measure of man -- in fact, to the measure of a man: himself.

In the brave new utopia he seems to want to usher in, Man is the Measure. That means the ancient insight that "God is the Measure" must be erased from human memory. Dawkins would have us all lobotomized that we may never recall anything of our shared human past. Wipe out philosophy; erase history; sneer at the historical evolution of human culture; p*ss on our ancestors; and hold all future generations in contempt. "We" -- meaning Dawkins and his ilk -- are ever so much smarter, and more "virtuous," than any generation that came before, or shall ever come in the future.

Whatta jerk.

The ancients had a name for a man like Dawkins: the Jews would have called him "nabal" (which means "fool"; but not "fool" as in "funny ha-ha." But "fool" in the sense of rejecting the God-ordained great hierarchy of being consisting of God - Man - World - Society. Heraclitus would have called him "idiotes," meaning a "private man" so disordered in his reason that he could not be trusted with public speech, let alone public business.

Plato would have said he was suffering from a pneumopathological disease the classical Greeks called nosos. [Aristotle called it nosemos.] Cicero would have said that he suffered from a pneumopathological disorder he called aspernatio rationes, or "contempt for reason."

I can't help but be amused that Dawkins invests so much time and energy "proving" the non-existence of God. Why is it the "God is Dead" crowd seem so nervous, so anxious, when they assert the body is safely in its coffin, dead and buried? Most undertakers I know simply take it for granted that the body lying in the coffin is, in fact, quite effectively "dead": It's not like you have to keep on checking!

49 posted on 01/04/2007 11:34:56 AM PST by betty boop (Beautiful are the things we see...Much the most beautiful those we do not comprehend. -- N. Steensen)
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To: hocndoc; Alamo-Girl; hosepipe; .30Carbine
( would you call it BB Prime, Alpha or Number 1?)

Well, you could call it the Logos of the beginning....

How many Big Bang theories are there by now, or do all these names refer to the same event?

Thanks for the ping, Hocndoc!

50 posted on 01/04/2007 11:39:28 AM PST by betty boop (Beautiful are the things we see...Much the most beautiful those we do not comprehend. -- N. Steensen)
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To: betty boop
Dawkins actually alludes to measuring a universe without God in an interview that I blogged about last fall. (on NPR)
51 posted on 01/04/2007 11:39:52 AM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: smokinleroy

One of my favorites.


52 posted on 01/04/2007 11:40:35 AM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: Aquinasfan; All

Logic and philosophy, like scientific evidence, are reliably and repeatedly discovered by different observers in different labs, under different conditions, and reported with the same or very similar conclusions. Sanity involves those conclusions that others share at least the more basic points of reality. (Romans 1)


53 posted on 01/04/2007 11:47:00 AM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: colorado tanker

A rehash of Enlightenment views of religion, but, as the reviewer points out, in Victorian language and with arguments better made by Lord Russell. Russell was at least a competent philosopher if also personally a cad.


54 posted on 01/04/2007 11:51:43 AM PST by RobbyS ( CHI)
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To: UpAllNight
IF God is not real, then you are the liar?

Do you doubt your hypothesis by your use of a "?" mark?

Dawkins states with "near" absolute authority that God does not exist in the universe. Theologians go one step further and make the absolute claim God does not exist in the universe.

Theologians claim that God exists outside the universe and is unknowable by any test of the universe's properties.

Dawkin's argument cannot stand because there is no scientific protocol by which he is able to dismiss God.

55 posted on 01/04/2007 11:57:16 AM PST by Louis Foxwell
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To: hocndoc
Logic and philosophy, like scientific evidence, are reliably and repeatedly discovered by different observers in different labs,

Have they discovered how much logic weighs? What color is it?

IOW, this is a category error, like saying that angels have been observed under laboratory conditions.

Logic is a purely non-material or spiritual phenomena or activity. It cannot be described scientifically or empirically.

Scientists employ logic, but science does not contain logic.

56 posted on 01/04/2007 11:57:30 AM PST by Aquinasfan (When you find "Sola Scriptura" in the Bible, let me know)
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To: Amos the Prophet
Theologians claim that God exists outside the universe and is unknowable by any test of the universe's properties. Depends on your epistomology. What do you mean by "unknowable." Dawkins et al. have little to say about where the "idea" of God came from.
57 posted on 01/04/2007 12:01:29 PM PST by RobbyS ( CHI)
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To: betty boop; Alamo-Girl
[ I can't help but be amused that Dawkins invests so much time and energy "proving" the non-existence of God. ]

The boy protests too much... The same problem drove Nietzsche to the funny farm.. and disassembled the grits of many other so-called deep thinkers..

Dawkins is a preacher preaching to a choir of the lost..
Singing a song of lost love..

The sheep MUST be separated from the goats, according to Jesus..
Dawkins has put out the call to all goats(The God Delusion)..
Thats according to Gods plan I would say..
Silly old goat..

58 posted on 01/04/2007 12:01:48 PM PST by hosepipe (CAUTION: This propaganda is laced with hyperbole)
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To: RobbyS
"Theologians claim that God exists outside the universe and is unknowable by any test of the universe's properties." - Amos

Depends on your epistomology. What do you mean by "unknowable." Dawkins et al. have little to say about where the "idea" of God came from. - RobbyS

The only epistomological argument that can be used to prove the existence of God from studying the properties of the universe is based on the notion that God IS the universe, pantheism.

God speaking into creation is the source of the "idea" of God. He is His own source.

59 posted on 01/04/2007 12:16:50 PM PST by Louis Foxwell
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To: Amos the Prophet
The only epistomological argument that can be used to prove the existence of God from studying the properties of the universe is based on the notion that God IS the universe, pantheism. That is simple not the case. Quite good arguments can me made. Whether you find them plausible is another matter.
60 posted on 01/04/2007 12:25:49 PM PST by RobbyS ( CHI)
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